Government to announce sale of unpaid student loans portfolio worth £900m
THE government is expected to announce a deal this morning to sell off a portfolio of student loans worth £900m.
The loans will be offloaded to an unnamed private debt collection agency, Sky News reported last night, saying they would be sold for tens of millions of pounds – “a fraction of the debts’ face value”.
The deal would encompass mortgage-style loans made in the 1990s, the last of their kind still in public ownership, Sky said, but not include income contingent repayment loans of the kind currently on offer.
The sell-off is part of a government drive to ultimately sell the entire outstanding student loan book, which has a face value of roughly £40bn, Sky said.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which is handling the sale, confirmed it would be making an announcement about a sell-off this morning, but said she couldn’t disclose any details.